Kick starting the year.

Tomato "Alicante"

The weather outside has not been kind so far this year, we have had snow, frosts and bitter winds thrown our way, but it is that time of year again and the seed sowing frenzy has begun. There is already a line up of small seed trays containing the seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, chillies and cabbage on a windowsill in the house.  As the weeks progress and the seedlings are potted on, more and more seeds will be sown and space inside will be at a premium.   It could be a while yet before any of the young seedlings make it to the greenhouse.

Despite the weather, to get our peas off to an early start I have planted these three seeds to a three inch pot, one inch deep, and left these in the greenhouse. These will be ready to be planted out in about a month’s time, hopefully the weather conditions will be better by then. If you fancy your luck at growing sweetpeas from seed, you can also sow these now using the same method.

It is also now time to be thinking about getting onion sets and shallots planted out for later in the year. Whilst preparing the bed in which they are to be grown I did get a bit of a surprise when I uncovered a parsnip that had been left in the ground over winter.  It was still in good condition, despite the weather, but it wasn’t long before it was added to a warming winter casserole. 

Snowdrops at
Burton Agnus Hall

Whilst I have been busy kick starting the veg growing year the garden has quietly gone ahead and done its own thing. The native primroses have been flowing none stop for weeks, and the buds on the trees and shrubs are slowly fattening up. The snow drops have put on a good show and already the first of the daffodils are flowering. The garden still needs a helping hand on occasion and it is now the ideal time to prune roses and dogwoods.

We recently removed our old bird box which was sited in the cherry tree and replaced it with a new one. It’s in pretty much the same place as the old one and to encourage birds to nest we added a little nesting material. Despite changing the box the blue tits still took an interest and seem to check it out every now and again. However, what we didn’t count on was the fact that they took an immediate dislike to our choice of nesting material. The blue tits actually went into the box and removed it bit by bit. They are still visiting the box and now the nesting material has gone they have now taken to pecking at the entrance way, maybe this is their way of marking their territory and warning others to stay away. Who knows?  Hopefully they will decide to nest again in the garden this year.